Vision, Heart, Spunk, Pure Excellence
Where to begin. If I could write vows to Sabrina and J29 Events, I would. My husband and I were on the cusp of hiring a different planner, and had even had an ideation/brainstorming session, but I happened to do one last phone call interview because why not. From that first phone call with Sabrina I immediately knew I had found the person and team that I would want with me throughout this process. We were aiming to put together a part-Western, part-Indian multi-day affair. We wanted it to be equal parts glamorous and cozy/laid back. We literally said “the vibe is Old Hollywood meets PNW organic and cozy.” Sabrina reveled in these contrasts and contradictions, and together we assembled an Indian-Western fusion wedding that dazzled every guest.
What was I looking for in the beginning? A team that was organized, reliable, and could help bring my vision to life. Someone who would run interference on my wedding day and help make sure things happened without a hitch. Did I get those things? Absolutely. Sabrina had every detail covered, helped me delegate every task, and had the most comprehensive planning document that she distributed to every vendor. Any person could have made sure things went to plan if she wasn’t able to be there, and I was able to hand that doc to our wedding party and all the little items magically happened (or if they didn’t, I didn’t notice). Vendors didn’t come to me with questions (and the one that did got a friendly but firm “please speak to me instead” from Sabrina). Thanks to her and the incredibly beautiful event that she helped us put together, we were 10000% present on our wedding day. So those are the things that the How-To-Pick-a-Planner articles say you should look for, and we got them in spades.
But man oh man, it’s the things that you don’t realize you need (or you think it might be shooting for the moon to ask for) that had me floored about working with Sabrina and J29.
One was the network. Sabrina and J29 are clearly well known within the event space for doing what they do with zest, gusto, and style. Every vendor we interviewed and worked with had amazing things to say about her, either from experience or from having heard incredible things and being eager to establish a relationship not just with us as customers but with her as a fellow vendor! (At one point I told her she should just go ahead and run for mayor of the greater PDX area). When we could not get response to emails or outreach calls, Sabrina had the connection (or knew a friend who knew someone) that helped us cut through the wedding industry red tape and get things booked. She knows the industry and the players like the back of her hand, and saved us HOURS of research by giving us as many options as we wanted and then helping us narrow down. (After the second time of me saying, ‘No please go ahead and give us your top 5-6 recommendations’ and then doing a bunch of interviews and research and arriving at the top two that she had originally recommended, I stopped asking for so many and started getting the perfect 2-3 vendor choices to make choosing a little easier). The team that we were able to assemble was sheer perfection. The catering was creative and delicious, delivering exactly the vibe and custom mouthwatering menu that we were hoping for. The flowers, after many many check-ins and discussions, were a delight. We were able to get a room block at a hotel that generally doesn’t do them during our wedding date. And the list goes on. All this to say, Sabrina and the J29 team are well-known, well-respected, and can get you connected to the team you need and want while not only saving you time, stress, and headache but actually making the process fun.
That’s the thing that really blew my now-husband and I away though - Sabrina herself. She is honestly Superwoman. Kind. Funny. Endlessly energetic. Did I mention funny? She had a way of speaking and doing that convinced me from the first phone call that “this is the person who will get sh** done” on my behalf. It’s like all the little details that my neurotic, type-A personality might have fretted about — Sabrina had already thought of them, and a solution or two up her sleeve, and was totally unphased. Any time we had doubts that we were being too fussy or particular, she would lovingly remind us that WE were “the pie,” and we deserved every drop of love we wanted to infuse. Every time I spoke to her I felt re-energized and excited for what we were building, even if I’d felt stressed before. She was the perfect salve to my procrastination when I wanted to avoid decisions. I couldn’t not pick up the phone when she called because every conversation was so fun. It wasn’t just Sabrina’s attitude though - she was also committed to making sure that both my personality and my partner’s were well represented and balanced throughout all the tiny details, from napkin color to DJ choice. She would help us talk through different opinions, getting to the heart of what mattered to both of us and offering creative, beautiful compromises that felt greater than the sum of their parts, and which made us both feel like our wedding was truly ours and nobody else’s.
A final thing I’ll mention is cost, but only because I read several reviews in the process of deciding to hire a planner that mentioned it and were very helpful to my decision. I read lots of great reviews about planners in which the reviewer said it was worth every penny - that hiring their planner was the best investment that they made in their wedding. I would triple down on this - hiring Sabrina and the J29 team was not only the best investment in our wedding, and one which I would make again in a heartbeat, but I honestly felt like what we got was so far above and beyond what we expected that we would have paid more. We had no idea the incredible creativity, knowledge, and execution that we were signing up for, and it was worth every penny we paid and then some. If you have the budget and are waffling at all on the topic of hiring a planner, or whether a few thousand dollars is really worth the difference, I am telling you that the ROI on J29 is huge — you will not regret this choice.
I could truly go on and on about Sabrina and the J29 team for hours (and all of my bridesmaids are probably sick of hearing me gush over her), so I’ll simply end with this: I could never imagine having thrown the amazing celebration that we did without Sabrina, and she really is the ride-or-die planner friend that people ache for. Our wedding was an actual dream come true and I firmly believe it would never have been as spectacular without her heart and know-how. She is our dear friend, she is our family. She has our hearts forever.